Mark of the Vampire
by Mertiya
Summary: Avacyn determines to discover once and for all the story of her origin. Not quite Savacyn, maybe if you squint.


Avacyn pulled the hood over her hair and stared up at the dark, imposing ruin on the horizon. She felt—anxious. Unsettled. This might prove to be a foolish decision, but she had to know. She owed it to those she was sworn to protect.

Still, the night seemed dark and the stones uneven beneath her feet as she wended her way up the narrow road toward the castle. She had chosen not to fly as she did not want to announce her presence. It was raining lightly as she ascended, and the castle itself seemed empty. The villagers nearby said it was haunted and avoided it, but Avacyn hoped that her information was more complete. If it was haunted, she thought grimly as she ascended toward it, it was by a thousand-year-old ghost who still walked and breathed.

The door was shut and locked, but a single spark of white mana was enough to melt the lock. She pushed it open and stepped inside. Foreboding as the castle looked on the outside, within was strangely less so. A dark blue carpet covered the floor, lit faintly by glowing orbs lining the walls, which, instead of being covered in dark paintings as one might expect, were simply a pale, rather calming blue. Simple. This place was—simple.

Cautiously, she moved up the staircase. Most of the rooms lining the hallway were dark, but there was one at the end that had a bright strip of light emanating from the door, and it was to there she went. Before she stepped in, she paused. Did she really want to do this? She thought of the tortured, half-doubting prayers she had heard every night for the past week. Yes. She had to.

She pushed open the door and walked in. There was a black-clad figure seated at an elegant, round table, reading from a book. He looked up as she came in, and she felt a chill at the sight of his white hair, so eerily similar to her own.

He raised an inquiring eyebrow. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I have come to rid the world of your evil, Sorin Markov!" She was pleased to notice that her voice did not shake at all, as she unbound her wings from beneath her cloak in a burst of white light, which formed into a glinting silver spear in her hands. She flew forward, and the vampire did not move at all as she raised her weapon above her head, preparing to bring it down.

He only chuckled. "Have you? Interesting." One minute motion of his hand, and the light died from within her. Avacyn crumpled to the ground, her power sucked away by an unseen force. Far, far worse than the unsettling feeling, though, was the confirmation. "So," she spat. "It's true."

Sorin rose from his chair and, strangely, knelt in front of her where she lay collapsed on the ground. "What is?" he asked softly.

"Me. I'm just your—your goatherd. Keeping your flocks fattened for you. Did you laugh very much when you created me, Markov?"

He regarded her impassively. "Why did I create you, Avacyn?"

"To be your lackey. To keep the humans from dying so they could be fed upon." She felt angry tears welling in her eyes.

"Why were you created?"

She reached up to strike him, but he caught her hand. "I just told you!" she snapped.

"I asked you _why you were created_," Sorin shot back. "Not why you think I created you. Why were you created? To protect the humans? Are they your children, Avacyn? Can they live only beneath your wings?"

She didn't understand what he was saying, only that he was not saying what she had expected him to say at all. He sighed sharply. "If you wish, I can remove your memories of this," he said.

Avacyn stared at him in mute despair, not understanding why he was making the offer, not understanding what he stood to gain. Finally, she nodded, then paused. "But I'll still hear their prayers," she whispered.

Sorin gave her a dark smile. "I can see to it that you don't," he said. As a look of horror passed across her face, he gave her a wry look. "Without killing them, even, if I must."

"…fine," she whispered at length. How could she live any other way, after all?

Sorin gave her another unreadable look. "I'll have to drink your blood," he said. "It's blood magic."

If she was to forget anyway, she might as well. She nodded sadly.

Sorin took her face in his hand and turned it gently to the side. She felt his breath on the side of her throat and wondered what it would mean to go back to as she had been before. _Can they live only beneath your wings?_ Of course not. The humans were—precious. They hadn't had a chance before she was created. There was nothing to put them on an equal footing. Sorin's fangs broke through her skin, two little jabs of pain. Nothing to put them on an equal footing.

Did it matter why he had created her?

Avacyn tore herself away, gasping in pain as the fangs ripped out a chunk of her flesh. Pressing one hand to her throat, she gave him a long, steady look. "I am not your child," she said.

"Ah," said Sorin, with something that might have been a grin and might have been a smirk. "I am pleased to hear it."

There was a long pause. It was a little awkward. Avacyn didn't feel as if she should be in the room with a vampire without trying to kill him, but that was definitely a nonstarter in this case. Sorin cleared his throat. "Would you mind letting me get back to my book, if you're finished having your journey of existential angst?"

She bristled slightly, but inclined her head. "As you wish, of course."

Feeling very bewildered, she gathered up her cloak from where she'd left it on the floor and made her way toward the exit.

"Avacyn," Sorin said, and she paused and looked back. "I wonder if you might, occasionally, see fit to share your company with me? I feel we each have…something to learn." The smile that passed across his face was utterly unreadable.

"I'll think about it," Avacyn said firmly, before seeing herself out.

"As you wish, of course," he called softly after her.


End file.
